Essay on Kohlberg's theory

Outline and evaluate one or more cognitive developmental theories of genderdevelopment. (25 marks) Psychologists have considered many explanations of gender development in an attempt tounderstand how our awareness of gender emerges and the effect it has on our behaviour and on thosearound us. One of the main theories in this field was developed by Kohlberg as an extension of earlierresearch by Piaget. His theory emphasises how a child develops both an understanding of gender andgender appropriate behaviour this increases with age. This theory is based around three "stages of gender identity development." It states children'sdiscovery of whether they are male or female helps them to identify with other members of the same sexthis is differs from other theories such as the Social Learning Theory and the psychoanalytic theory whichsuggest it is the other way round. The first stage is known as `Gender labelling' and occurs when the child is between 2 and 3.5years old. It is at this stage that the child becomes aware of their own sex as male or female. This enablesthem to categorise others also but the information is fragile and they don't yet have the understanding that itis permanent boys will always become men and girls will invariably become women. The second stage is known as `Gender stability' and occurs between 3.5 and 4.5 years old. Atthis age children can normally recognise that people retain their gender for a lifetime, however they still relyon superficial signs to determine gender such as hair length or clothes. They still understand gender assituational dependant. The third stage and final stage in the development of gender identity is known as `Genderconsistency' and is achieved by around the age of 4.5 to 7 years. This is when children realise gender isimmutable. This means gender is conserved regardless or time or situation so even if a woman cuts her veryshort she will still remain female. Once gender consistency has been achieved the child will become aware of attitudes andbehaviours that are gender appropriate. They find that acting in these ways are rewarding and selffulfillingand so this behaviour is reinforced. Kohlberg famously stated in 1966, "I am a boy, therefore I want todo boy things, therefore the opportunity to do boy things (and gain approval for doing them) ... isrewarding." At this stage they also begin to identify with adults who possess the qualities they see as beingmost important to being male or female themselves. Evidence suggests that the basis of Kohlberg's theory seems correct. Thompson (1975) foundchildren demonstrated behaviour consistent with Kohlberg's stages. Children aged 23 could apply genderlabels correctly to themselves and others which is consistent with Kohlberg's `Gender identity' stage. There is also cross cultural evidence supporting the theory as found by Monroe et al. (1984)finding the same sequences of stages. Sably and Frey (1975) investigated the age at which children reached Kohlberg's `genderconsistency' stage. They showed support for the sequential order of his stages but raised questions overthis factor as well as differences between boys and girls when attending to same sex models. They divided25 year olds into `high' and `low' gender consistency groups. The children were shown a silent film ofadults performing simple activities with the screen split with males performing the activity on one side andfemales on the other. Children with `high' gender consistency ratings showed a greater tendency to attendto the same sex models, measured by the amount of visual attention given to each side of the screen. Thissupports Kohlberg's idea that gender consistency is a cause of imitation of the same sex rather than effectof such behaviour. However, children may hold strong stereotypes about the power of the male model andso may imitate males more.

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There is a major problem with Kohlberg's theory by which it predicts there is little or no genderappropriate behaviour before gender consistency is achieved. Yet in reality gender role behaviour is shownby most boys and girls by their second birthday which according to Kohlberg is several years beforestage 3 is achieved. This suggests that gender consistency may be established earlier but the infants areunable to verbalise this due to limitations on language.…read more